Michael DeMocker / The Times-Picayune archiveA telephone with sheets featuring the numbers of bail bondsmen and "how to make a collect call" at Orleans Parish Prison in February 2008.

In New Orleans, the vast majority of defendants are required to post some kind of bond -- often with a commercial bonding company -- to get out of jail. Vera Institute director Michael Jacobson said while that other cities have developed different systems for determining whether a defendant should be released pending trial, looking not at the person's ability to pay but whether that person belongs in jail.

Many cities across the country, from New York City to Washington, D.C., have a "pretrial services" division or nonprofit organization that determines whether defendants are a flight risk or pose a threat to public safety, Jacobson told Councilwomen Susan Guidry and Jackie Clarkson, who attended the council's criminal justice committee meeting.

Within 24 hours of an arrest, an evaluation is conducted of each defendant -- examining not just the charge and arrest history, but a person's ties to the community, job status and other factors -- and a recommendation is given to a judge who determines whether to keep somebody in jail or release that person, he said.

In New York, Jacobson estimated that in about half the cases, defendants are released without any supervision. Some pretrial services programs include regular calls to defendants to remind them to come to court on a specific date, which often results in high court attendance rates, he said.

In too many cases in New Orleans, people who aren't a public safety risk and who will show up for court hearings are kept in jail for long periods of time, said Jacobson, who previously served as New York City's correction commissioner.

"Research tells us time and time again that if you over punish people who are low risk and low needs -- and your system is full of those kind of cases -- you will turn them into a threat to public safety," Jacobson said, pointing to problems like defendants losing jobs or heightening their mental illnesses while in custody.

New Orleans' system of jailing many defendants before trial -- even those who ultimately are not sent to prison -- is expensive at a time when city budgets are strapped, said Lynn Overmann, deputy counselor of the U.S. Department of Justice's Access to Justice program. Overmann said the Justice Department is willing to work with the city to help create a pretrial evaluation system.

Guidry said establishing a pretrial services program could be an important part of changing the city's criminal justice system. But Clarkson said she doesn't know if the city was ready for such a step, saying she wouldn't be comfortable until other parts of the system are improved.

Magistrate Judge Gerard Hansen, who is in charge of the division of Criminal District Court where most bond decisions are made, said he is open to a new program that would provide additional information about defendants.

Hansen noted that in many drug possession cases, people eventually are released on their own recognizance after being assigned to a drug court.

But Jon Wool, director of the Vera Institute's programs in New Orleans, said a drug court defendant would likely spend as many as 10 days in jail during the district attorney's screening process before that release. "It makes the case for pretrial release," Wool said. "If the person is going to end up in drug court, why disturb their lives?"